Aerie Archive 1988-89
A Blast from the Past

This issue’s “Aerie Archive” features an excerpt from the 1988-89 yearbook in which students, faculty and staff projected what life at Oklahoma Christian might be like in 2010. What do you think? How accurate were their predictions?

1989 Pond

OCC 2010: Our Children Return

Campus

The physical growth of the campus was analyzed and predicted when Oklahoma Christian College first moved to Oklahoma City 30 years ago. Since then, buildings and trees have filled the once barren landscape. Administrators predict that the library will eventually occupy the entire Mabee Learning Center, and that there will be one central facility for administration (although hopefully the instructors and chair-persons will still have offices in each of their particular divisions).

Bob Lashley

Dormitories are currently on the agenda for physical growth and will probably be built within a few years. One option is a high-rise dormitory. “We have not done this yet purposely because it allows us to add in smaller increments. Also because it gives us more of a feel of a campus to have 20 buildings, than have one women’s dorm and one men’s dorm,” Dr. Stafford North explains.

The next project after dormitories will be a special events facility. But President J. Terry Johnson says most of the building for the next 10 years is done. He acknowledges, however, that the campus will require more growth by 2010.

Enrichment

During and after the building construction of the next few years, OCC will be concentrating more on endowments and enrichment of existing programs. By 2010, administrators predict this will be the primary focus. Of course, when 21 years pass, the programs being enriched will be quite different from what is projected today.

President Terry Johnson

OCC anticipates a long-term future, not only as a learning institution, but also as a spiritual institution. Administrators hope that the bond that the students now share will still be important in 2010. North explains, “I hope we are still providing a place for students to come and make that transition away from home.”

Perhaps Johnson best summarizes the administration’s goals for the future by saying, “I see part of the strength, character, and the personality of this institution being wrapped up in being a modest-sized institution. We’ll leave it to others to be the biggest. We would like to be the best of a type.”

The Aerie asked several students their opinions on what OCC would be like in the year 2010. Here is a sampling of their responses:

Kelli Davis Muskogee, OK Senior

“In the year 2010, I will be 43 years old. I’ll probably have kids here at OCC; which will be a university by then. The way I see school then is much the same as now: same policies, same teachers, same buildings plus more (all in red bricks, of course). The change will be a new and improved way of doing things. Chapel will be checked by IDs with magnetic tape. The computer lab will have voice input, and dorm rooms will be unlocked by a punch key code. One reassuring thing though – my kids will be in their rooms at 11:15.”

Jonathan Meyer Tuttle, OK Freshman

“I think OCC will be bigger, more majors will be offered, and hopefully we will attract the same quality faculty and staff.”

Mike Osburn Tahlequah, OK Junior

“The changes all depend on the structure of the administration and who is filling those roles. I can see the rules becoming slightly more liberal, but never a drastic change in the basic philosophy. God is God and the Bible is the Bible and what he says is the same in 1950 as well as 2010.”

Devonne Mitchell Norman, OK Senior

“In the year 2010, ‘OCC’ will no longer exist, but a Christian university will sit on this campus. We will have the best engineering school in the country. All our academic programs will be thriving.

Our social service clubs will be known statewide because we will have a huge system that does projects all over. Spring Sing shows will be a week long because only four shows won’t be enough seating for everyone.”